The next morning I woke up with a groan. My brain was pounding like it tried to escape from my skull, and my entire body felt like I had been crushed under a semi-truck. My tongue was glued to the back of my mouth, my throat was dry, and I felt like shit.
Grumbling incoherent complaints under my breath, I turned, feeling the soft velvet underneath me. Despite it being quite old, it was still very comfortable to sleep on, and I sighed, trying to enjoy the feeling.
Despite my hangover, I had no trouble remembering where I was or what had happened. How I had spent the rest of the previous evening going through the drinks cabinet until I found something capable of affecting me. And then, how I had gone a bit overboard in an attempt to drown out the dread that had crept in at the edge of my mind. Questions about my own identity, my own memories, my own everything.
It was the sort of thing you so often read about someone going through, but also something that for most was probably quite difficult to really appreciate. Most people could rely on their own sense of self. They might be unhappy with certain things, but the one thing that would always be the same would be who they were at the core. Their identity, their memories, their preferences and dislikes, everything that made a person a person.
Well… Normally they’d also be pretty settled on their physical body. Of course, there were many instances where that in and of itself was the problem. I could sympathise, given my own unwillingness to even think about the fact that I was now living in a body not my own. Regardless, most people probably never worried about their own physical form. And even if they did, they could still all rely on being human, and the certainty that no matter what happened, they would wake up the next morning as the person they were the day prior.
Having that sense disrupted by suddenly waking up in another body with absolutely no say in the matter or idea on how it happened, had rattled me in a way I hadn’t really been able to appreciate until yesterday evening. I had avoided thinking about it, but even then it was something I indirectly returned to every so often. Questions on the how and why of my appearance here certainly also touched on the topic, after all.
But all that paled in comparison to the realisation that I truly knew nothing at all. Not only about the world around me, but also about myself. The core of the being I had considered myself to be.
Even now I couldn’t shake the feeling of unease those thoughts inevitably drew up, but at least it felt a little bit more distant now. It was one of those things that I needed to work through over time. Something I wasn’t looking forward to at all. Mostly because I had the fleeting feeling that it would be hard to impossible to come to any concrete conclusions without the help of Abyss. And I wasn’t sure if she would be willing to tell me. Or if I was ready to hear it even if she did.
Well, whatever. Something for the future.
Getting up, I stretched myself this way and that. I had more or less passed out in Tizanta’s bed after I had worked my way through two bottles of some dwarven fire wine. I had no point of reference for how much that was compared to what a human could drink, but given that it was enough to knock me out cold, I doubted it was a healthy amount.
Sleeping in Tizanta’s bed had been a bit of an experience. I blushed slightly at the half-forgotten memories of the evening prior. Despite the long disuse of the bed, I had still been able to smell faint hints of Tizanta’s scent on the sheets. I still hadn’t decided if that was disgusting or not, but it didn’t really matter.
What did matter was that for some reason–I wasn’t sure if it had been my drunken stupor or just a reaction of the body I know inhabited–that scent had helped, uh… Get me in the mood. Luckily, I don’t think I had been able to do much more than drunkenly fumble about for a couple of minutes before passing out.
It did make it pretty clear, though, that on some levels I was closer to Vuthe than I had originally thought. The scent alone had been enough to evoke a sense of longing that even now persisted, if in a much weaker form. Of course, Vuthe and Tizanta had been a couple for many centuries, even if they never married, but I hadn’t expected any of those emotions to filter through to me.
To be honest, I still wasn’t even sure if they did. Because while I felt some longing, it wasn’t exactly the sort of emotional pull I would expect to experience. Then again, I was by far not an expert on those sorts of things. Even with my very limited memory, I was pretty certain love had never been something I had truly experienced before. It had, in fact, been one of the main reasons I had decided to write a story about a romance. Even if that was packed into a whole mess of a Hive-Mind and invading aliens.
Still, something to keep in mind and keep an eye on.
For now, I quickly summoned up my scales to reform into my casual clothes, before I got up and stretched again. Pulling out the time piece, I found it to be just after noon. Not surprising, I had been pretty out of it the evening prior.
Leaving the room behind, I returned back to the library. I kind of wanted to take a bath, but I hadn’t found a place with running water yet, and despite all of Vuthe’s magical prowess, water magic wasn’t something she had ever been capable of using. Draconic affinities and all that.
I had, at least, found mention of a basic cleaning spell in one of the books. It was the sort of thing meant to be used by cleaning staff and maids, people who might not have the same magical prowess than a proper magician had, but still were capable of using at least some magic. It had to do to keep me clean for the time being. At least until the time I finally left this city. Or I learned some magic I could actually use to summon up a bath.
The whole thing about souls reentered my mind. Theoretically, if I did indeed have Vuthe’s Soul, then I should be able to draw upon her divine authority to bypass her own magical limitations. Although, even if it was possible, I had already decided to not mess with that part yet, so I shook my head and banished the idea.
Checking my schedule, I found that I was supposed to be reading up on magic right now. Given that I was already in the library, I decided I might as well. I had wasted a lot of time last night, so there was no point in delaying any further.
With a sigh I closed the book about advanced conjuration of semi-sentient beings that I had been reading through, and rubbed my face. The read itself had been fascinating, if it weren’t for the fact that I got distracted every other page. My mind refused to focus on anything other than the mess about my own sense of self, and I growled in displeasure.
The sound was surprisingly potent. Not loud, exactly, but very powerful with meaning. It made me pause and blink for a moment.
Dismissing it, and sighing yet again, I pushed the book to the side, vowing to read through it again later. I hated not having ADHD meds or anything else to keep me occupied. The thought of ADHD just dregged up the same old questions about my current status and my similarities with Vuthe that I hadn’t been able to shake at all.
I had never explicitly stated Vuthe to have ADHD, although given that I was the author and very definitely had it, there probably was some influence there. Really, the main reason I even thought about it was that realisation that I wasn’t able to focus the same way I sort of expected Vuthe to, which just brought me back to the whole fear I had about having to act like her, but not having her determination.
Fear and annoyance.
I leaned back, idly drumming my fingers on the table.
I hated this. I hated that I couldn’t shake those stupid thoughts. It annoyed me in so many ways. Not only because it kept me on edge, but also because it kept me from being productive otherwise. From distracting myself. I could work with wasting large amounts of time, as long as I had something I could sink my teeth into and focus on.
So far that had been weapons training, magick and aura training, shapeshifting training, and research. It’s been like two weeks, and I hadn’t really felt bored yet, as long as I had new and exciting things to learn. Especially with how easy things came to me thanks to the magical bullshit memory siphon thing I had going on.
Now, though, I couldn’t. I felt like an engine running with half the pistons being faulty. Entirely unbalanced and out of order. And I hated it.
Growling again I got up, moving a bit more aggressively then needed, my shadow clones continuing their work. I had made really nice progress with them, although they were far from perfect. There were still so many different things that needed improvement and so many possible approaches for said improvement, but I couldn’t focus on anything.
I decided that I was going to take another walk. I needed fresh air to clear my mind. A bit of walking would do me good.
A half-surfaced memory caught my attention, more of an ironic comment than anything else.
‘You? Going on a walk? Who are you and what did you do to my brother?’
It was gone as quickly as it had appeared, leaving me with a frown. The… I wanted to call it a voice, but it wasn’t so much a spoken sentence as it was a memory carrying intent. Whoever the source was, though, they felt familiar. I just couldn’t place them. And brother… Were they referring to me?
Given my rather lackluster memory, I hadn’t really had much opportunity to think about myself and the strange feeling of awkwardness I felt in this new body. Was that the reason? Or had I been the one to speak and this ‘brother’ had been a sibling of mine?
Again, more questions with no answers, and nothing that got me any closer to figuring out… just about anything. In a way, that just made it worse.
I did my best to try and push those thoughts aside. Thankfully–if that was even the right word to use in this mess–my other worries about who I was and where Vuthe and I diverged quickly drowned that specific memory out.
With no clue where to go, I just headed into a random direction and began to walk. Almost immediately another mystery dug through the mess of thoughts racing through my mind, which had me returning to the question where all the personal items had gone.
I hadn’t gone through the entire city or palace yet, obviously, but from what I’ve seen the only personal effects still remaining anywhere within the city boundaries were the ones belonging to Tizanta, Calagrophy, Castaphiel, and Corellanium. Everything else was gone.
Sure, the term ‘personal affects’ was vague enough to be laughable, but I hadn’t found a single better term to use. Because there just were certain things that didn’t have any functional value in a home and simply served as personal mementos, decoration, or some other use specific to one person. All those were gone. Probably even a lot of items that did have some practical use but were considered personal.
I just couldn’t really check, since I had no clue what was supposed to be present.
I was just about to turn towards the next main street, when I stopped. Ever since I had begun aura training I had made it a habit to expand my senses when I was out of the palace. It was an aura control exercise. My senses were powerful enough to notice small critters and the like scurrying around outside the city walls–which had also revealed to me that there was absolutely no life within the city limits strangely enough–and how they reacted to my presence, my aura. Most of the time the moment they came into contact with my aura they ran, so I had started to try and keep myself removed enough to not frighten them.
I had no illusion about me being undetectable, despite all the skills and knowledge I was siphoning from Vuthe in that regard. Auras were weird affairs and an entirely new sensation to me, so some time to learn and setbacks were to be expected.
Regardless, thanks to this habit that I had gotten into, I noticed something weird at the edge of my perception, just past the hills surrounding the city. I could’ve spread my aura far wider, but I didn’t want to draw too much attention and I hadn’t seen any signs of anything larger than a fat rat moving around past the hills. Whatever was keeping the city in perpetual twilight was probably to blame for that.
What I felt was… strange. It felt hostile, in some ways, but not towards me. There was also some panic to go along with the hostility, although I couldn’t discern any individuals. This far away and with my aura spread so thin, I hadn’t yet learned to properly read it yet. And I was a bit cautious about trying to poke at the sensation more closely.
Given that, I took to the skies, quickly forming my wings and jumping into the air in a mighty leap. Flying over to the edge of the city, careful to keep behind the invisible line that every instinct that was a part of me screamed at, I tried to make out anything in the distance. My new eyes were sharp, far sharper than I think human vision ever could be, but even then it was a bit hard to make out thanks to the forest between.
Hard to make out didn’t mean impossible to see, though. The details were murky, but given the sense I got from my aura and what I could see from here, I was pretty sure there was a chase going on. One group was chasing the other, and the chasees were losing quickly.
It was also pretty clear that the chasing group was definitely not human or humanoid. Or rather, even if they might have some physiology that was roughly similar, they were unlikely to be sapient or sentient or whatever. I wasn’t quite sure how I knew that, I just did from the way they felt to my aura senses. Animalistic, feral, brutal, primal. Not entirely stupid, but not much smarter than a wolf, and certainly not fully self-aware the same way people were.
The group getting chased was harder to make out given that it was far smaller, but it also definitely felt more like people. Strange and weird and kind of horrifying, but definitely people. I reserved my judgment about their intentions and the meaning of that weird horrifying feeling I got from them until I knew more, but it certainly made me hesitant.
The Vuthe from my stories should’ve been safe from just about any common and even uncommon threat found in Fendalyr. But I’ve already learned that she and I weren’t exactly the same. Even if I retained her strength, I wanted to make sure I didn’t do anything rash. My approach had to be cautious and decisive.
That resolve lasted about as long as it took for the two groups to break through the line of forest and come into full view on the empty fields surrounding Thelvadore. Now with a far clearer image, I took in the scene.
The first thing that caught my attention was the beasts chasing them. Big hulking things that somewhat resembled a bear, although with some wolf and bat mixed in. The general body was massive, with four muscular limbs and claws I was almost certain were made out of metal, yet at the same time it also seemed a bit too long to be a bear. The head resembled that of a wolf, as did the tail. Most surprisingly, they had bat-like wing membranes running between their body and their front limbs. There was absolutely no way these things would ever be able to fly, but they might be able to glide a bit at least. A terrifying thought.
In front of them was half of the group that got chased. I say half, because that group was made up of two people, with one being further in front. The one at the back wasn’t there because they were too slow to catch up, I realised after a moment, they were there by choice. From their appearance it quickly became apparent that they were a fighter of some sort, clad head to toe in some leather looking medium armor, with a long cape, a deep hood, and a mask hiding their face. They were wielding a sword in one hand, and were obviously quite skilled, doing their best to intercept any of the big bear-like things before they could take over and threaten the person running at the front.
That person being the one I found myself most surprised and captivated by. They were humanoid, wearing what I’d imagine light armor or traveler's gear to look like, with no weapon in evidence. What really struck me, though, were the ears and tail. The details were a bit hard to make out, but I was positive that those resembled the features of a feline of some variety. Regardless, they looked utterly panicked and completely out of their depths, running as fast as their legs could carry them.
For a moment I just watched.
I knew full well that I had a tail. And horns and wings, for that matter. So I really shouldn’t have been that shocked by the sight of someone with animalistic features, but for some reason that just… got me. Everything else was fantastical and magickal. The beasts looked dangerous, but removed enough from anything you could find on Earth that it didn’t really register with me as strange.
But a person with cat ears and tail?
Despite how much I loved the prospect of meeting an actual catgirl one of these days, somehow actually seeing a beastkin felt like too much. Uncanny Valley style.
My musings were interrupted by a yelp, one of the big bear things had suddenly rushed forwards and, together with one of its packmates, tried to catch the warrior type off guard. They only barely managed to evade the attack, but in the process allowed one of the bear things to rush past unimpeded. The person at the front was evidently very exhausted, because it didn’t seem like they were able to keep up the pace.
I felt the sense of danger standing at the edge of city limits. I could probably get there within a moment. It was within the twilight zone and I had my shadowstep. Not to mention that I didn’t really like the idea of watching people get mauled at that.
It was just that I was also really fucking terrified for my life. Intellectually knowing I was supposed to be some überpowerful super being was not the same as experiencing it. And I kind of felt like even one of those bear things would have no trouble ripping me apart without even trying.
A panic yell rang out yet again, the person in the lead just barely managing to escape the first swipe of the massive claw. My grimace deepened, and I swallowed.
“I fucking hate myself.”
And with that, I stepped into the shadows.
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